


no one has anything to say (there is nothing to talk about)

by khilari



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse, ominous fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 20:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15323769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: In the year between the duels and their graduation Touga and Saionji date. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they even communicate.





	no one has anything to say (there is nothing to talk about)

‘Which university are you going to?’ Touga asks, standing by Saionji’s window while Saionji works on a paper.

‘That depends on where I can get in,’ Saionji answers, distracted, pen scratching over something, some word he’s glaring at like he wants to kill it.

Touga smiles. ‘Almost anywhere. Your grades are at least as good as mine.’

‘You always do better in exams.’ University entrance exams, looming large in both their futures this year. Saionji’s thrown himself into the pursuit of a good university with more determination than he ever really showed for pursuing eternity. Consistently, rather than with wild flashes of longing. He’s writing now, eyebrows unfurrowing as he finds his thread.

‘Worrying about grades,’ Touga says. ‘It’s so mundane.’

‘It’s important. Or do you not care because you’re guaranteed a job with your father’s company?’

Gauranteed is one way to put it. Touga’s not the only one with a family legacy, either. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Maybe.’ Saionji’s staring down at the paper he’s working on, pen still and face blotchy red. ‘There are some things I want to tell my parents. Afterwards, if they still want me to work for them, I probably will.’

‘You’re talking about coming out to them.’

‘Once I’m done with university.’ It will go badly then, or Saionji expects it to, and he’s still thinking of doing it. ‘Haven’t you ever thought about it?’

‘My parents have never cared about my preferences.’ Touga’s gaze slips aside as Saionji looks up, goes out the window to the lamplit street below.

Saionji names a university. ‘Probably there. What about you?’

‘I don’t know, yet. Maybe there as well.’

‘That would be nice.’ Saionji’s voice is unwarrantedly soft.

Touga tips his head back towards him, sliding a glance from under his lashes, mouth curling up on a smirk. ‘Would it?’

Saionji huffs. ‘Probably not.’

Touga slips over behind him as he bends back over his paper, hands toying with the long, tangled curls falling over the back of the chair. ‘But you’d miss me if I went somewhere else.’

‘I’d get more work done.’ He bats one of Touga’s hands away halfheartedly. ‘I knew what I wanted to write a moment ago.’

Touga slides his other hand down Saionji’s chest. ‘If you’ve already forgotten you may as well take a break.’

Saionji leans back against Touga’s chest, scowl lacking any real ferocity, and lets Touga kiss him. ‘Fine,’ he murmurs.

Touga chuckles. ‘Good.’

* * *

Sometimes, lying in bed beside Saionji, looking at the empty black rectangle darkness makes of a photograph he knows by heart, Touga wonders what it would be like to tell Saionji everything. _You remember us being happy as children, but for me… I was…_ Even in his head he can find no words for what happened that leave him with any dignity. _I had to…_ He stirs restlessly against the covers, suddenly too aware of everything touching him.

Saionji wakes enough to mutter, ‘You okay?’

‘Fine,’ says Touga. ‘It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.’

He wraps his arm around Saionji and presses his forehead to the back of Saionji’s neck.

* * *

‘The Chairman’s offered me a job. If I want to return here when I’ve finished university,’ Touga says. They’re in the kendo hall, still in hakama from practice, sitting side by side on the floor.

‘You’d be a fool to take it,’ Saionji says.

‘My father’s offered me a job too, with the company. A sort of personal assistant to him while I learn the ropes.’

‘You make that sound worse,’ Saionji says, as if Touga’s voice hadn’t been perfectly flat. Maybe that was what gave it away.

‘It is,’ he admits.

‘Don’t do either then. Do something else.’

‘Anywhere else I’d be starting at the bottom.’

Saionji snorts. ‘You’re not the only one. Get over yourself.’

Touga tips his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. ‘It’s not really pride,’ he murmurs. Perhaps it’s cynicism, one of the devils he knows over legions of unknown demons. At least then he knows who he needs to bow to.

‘It’s stupid,’ says Saionji. ‘I don’t understand why you’re considering this at all.’

‘I know.’ Touga tilts a smile at him. ‘You’re strangely intuitive at times, but you can’t actually read minds.’

‘I’m not… I can read _you_ because we’ve known each other forever.’

Touga stretches luxuriously and stands up, heading for the showers. Saionji falls into step with him.

‘I’m looking forward to never thinking about this place again,’ Saionji says, scowling up at the barred windows as if he means even his beloved kendo hall.

‘Nanami will still be here,’ Touga reminds him.

‘She’ll transfer out of here the instant we graduate. She’s got more sense than you.’

‘Hey, now,’ Touga protests mildly, thinking of some of the nonsense Nanami’s been involved in.

‘Don’t bother denying it.’ Saionji’s voice is harsh, but his eyes are soft and his lips are twitching up at the corner.

Touga grins and tugs him towards the showers.

* * *

Touga spends a lot of time in Saionji’s dorm that year. Even on days when static sinks into his bones and all he does is sprawl on Saionji’s bed staring at the ceiling for hours on end. It’s as blank and white as the inside of an egg.

Saionji shakes him out of it at dinner time.

‘I went to the trouble of cooking it, so you’d better eat,’ he says, as if he didn’t always cook on days like this. As if Touga hasn’t almost given up on smirking at the frilly apron he stubbornly insists on wearing, it’s become so familiar.

* * *

‘If you’re going to make me come to your stupid party you could at least stick around for it yourself,’ Saionji says.

Touga glances away from his bedroom window, where he’d been looking out over the moonlit garden, and waves a hand. ‘It’s your party too. For everyone graduating this year.’

‘I hate parties.’ Saionji’s mouth is a flat line, his eyes narrowed.

‘You thought I’d slipped away with a girl,’ Touga says. ‘You’re angry to find you were wrong about me.’

Saionji snaps, ‘Don’t be so goddamn superior.’ He shoves hair out of his face. ‘I’m going home.’

‘Hey, hey. Is that any way to say goodbye?’ Touga reaches for Saionji’s shoulder, but Saionji grabs his hand and shoves it away.

‘We’re going to the same university. Quit trying to pull this on me.’

‘Pull what?’ There really isn’t anything Touga can think of.

‘Just. Even when it’s something stupid. Either ask me to stay or let me leave!’

‘You know I want you here. Are you really going to storm out because I left your sight for five minutes?’

Saionji clenches his fists, a muscle jumping in his jaw, and then he turns and does just that.

* * *

Saionji reappears after the party’s over, sheepishly scowling at the floor when Touga invites him in. They go back up to Touga’s room, away from where the servants are cleaning up.

‘Do you ever feel like this place is part of Ohtori?’ Saionji asks, standing beside Touga at the window. The moon is behind clouds now, leaving the garden dark, shadow on shadow.

‘It would explain a lot,’ Touga says. He wonders whether he should find it comforting or horrifying to imagine that everything that happened here had happened under the malign influence of Ohtori.

‘I keep thinking I won’t be able to leave. That I’ll wake up tomorrow and it will be the beginning of my final year again,’ Saionji says.

Touga reaches out to run fingers through Saionji’s hair, feeling him calm under the touch like a horse being curried. ‘He hasn’t paid any attention to you in the last year. I don’t think he’d bother.’

That’s cutting comfort and he’s not surprised when Saionji pulls away to glare at him. It’s more surprising when Saionji grabs his hands a moment later, holding them up between their chests. ‘Or that you won’t be able to leave,’ he says, voice raw. ‘I’ll get to university and you won’t be there, because you’ll still be _here_.’

‘That won’t happen either,’ Touga says. ‘The Chairman expects me to come back on my own, so he won't worry about keeping me.’

Saionji’s grip on his hands is bruising, Saionji’s eyes full of half-understood horror. Touga leans forward and kisses him, lightly, on the mouth. Saionji kisses back, rough and desperate.

* * *

Saionji stands at the railing of the boat that’s carrying them away from the Houou peninsula and stares at the entire place like he’s sizing up a kendo opponent. ‘How far do you think we have to be? To be out of it?’

The ends of the world wouldn’t be far enough, but Touga says, ‘This is probably fine.’

Saionji grips the railing hard enough to make it creak. ‘Liar.’


End file.
